REVIEW: Late Night Theatresports

With quick wit and think-on-their-feet spontaneity, the Late Night Theatresports crew will take you on a completely unplanned, unscripted and undeniably funny journey of games, scenes and songs. The only thing you can really expect is laughter, and that they will provide that in abundance.

You know what’s hard? Standing up in front of an audience and entertaining them. Know what’s even harder? Trying to make them laugh. If you then also factor in no script or real idea of what may happen on any given night, it can be downright impossible…but the gang in Late Night Theatre Sports have a way of making it seem easy.

The premise of Theatre Sports is competitive improvisation. Scenarios, games and characters are thrown into the ring by team captains and audience members, and the teams then have to impro it out against each other to create the best scene, thus winning the round and the respect and adulation of the crowd… Well, they win the round anyway.

Late Night Theatre Sports is taking a slightly different twist. The performers change every night, but the crux of the night is the same: instead of multiple teams led by a captain each, this show just has one team (The show I saw consisted of Impro Melbourne members Rik Brown, Russell Fletcher, Lliam Amor and special guest Rebecca De Unamuno) and shakes it all up with two captains (Jamie Robertson and SarahKinsella on the night I attended). These two leaders are vying for the coveted position of Team Captain for the upcoming Theatre Sport season.

Both armed with a different overall theme and a healthy dose of humour, the two Team Captains rely on the spontaneity of the actors on stage and the audience votes to win each round.

There are musical numbers, Shakespearean soliloquies, running jokes and a whole lot of wrongness to keep you entertained and amused, while the funky keyboard stylings of onstage musician Gordon Dorin will have to tapping your toes along to the beat.

You really never know what’s going to happen or where the night will take you, but you will find yourself laughing, clapping and calling out from your seats as this brilliant, off-the-cuff cast make stuff up on the spot with genuine wit and cleverness.

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Catch Late Night Theatre Sports at The Melbourne Town Hall from March 30 (shows are only on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights ) till April 13.